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Ties that bind prove a private education has its awards

Jewel Topsfield

ONE of Melbourne's bastions of male privilege - Scotch College - has educated more of Australia's most honoured and influential citizens than any other school in the nation.

An analysis of the 435 people who have received the nation's top Order of Australia honours since they were first awarded in 1975, shows they disproportionately attended a handful of elite Victorian secondary schools.

The only school that comes close is Geelong Grammar, with former students, including Prince Charles and Rupert Murdoch, receiving 17 honours.

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Alumni from the two schools have received more than 8 per cent of all the knight, dame or Companion of the Order of Australia honours - more than all the schools in each of Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, ACT and Northern Territory.

The analysis provides a fascinating insight into the transfer of social advantage through the school system, with independent schools dominating rankings in Victoria.

The only government school in Victoria to be ranked in the top 30 was the selective-entry Melbourne High School, whose alumni - including Nobel prizewinning neurophysiologist John Eccles and former Reserve Bank governor Ian Macfarlane - received six honours. However, study author Rohan Reid said outside of Victoria the dominant schools were not always private, with former students from the selective state schools Sydney Boys' High and Fort Street High receiving the third and equal fourth highest number of awards.

Professor Jack Keating from the University of Melbourne said that unlike Melbourne, Sydney had about 20 selective-entry high schools. ''Sydney Boys and Fort Street are long-established, so the economic and social elite will be more inclined to send their kids there,'' Professor Keating said.

''The selective-entry high schools have been favoured by a certain middle class on the Labor side of politics. A lot of the lawyers' class and the professional class comes through these schools, whereas in Melbourne, the law and medical classes tend to come through the private schools.''

He said the study mirrored the findings of Melbourne University researchers Mark Peel and Janet McCalman, who analysed the educational backgrounds of the people listed in the 1988 Who's Who. Again, Scotch College outranked all other schools.

Professor David Penington, an Old Scotch Collegian who was made a companion of the Order of Australia in 1988 for his service to medicine and the community, believes the school's Scottish Presbyterian background meant it has always placed a strong emphasis on community contribution.

It's a sentiment shared by former premier and old Scotch boy Jeff Kennett, AC, who still recalls the words of former headmaster Richard Selby Smith. ''He used to say to us that we had an obligation to the college when we left school - it wasn't all about money, it was actually about service. It was something that stuck in my mind as a young boy.''

Mr Kennett believes Order of Australia honours should reward what people do outside their jobs.

''I think there are so many people who consistently give to the community, who don't get the recognition they deserve,'' he said. Author Shane Maloney infamously described Scotch College as a ''machine for the transmission of inherited privilege'' during a creative writing seminar at the school nine years ago.

Asked whether the analysis of Order of Australia honours reinforced his view that Scotch was a factory of privilege, Mr Maloney said: ''You could draw that conclusion. Alternatively, the argument could be put that it simply reinforces the value parents get for their money.''